Memo to Barry Lynn

Barry Lynn knew that Richard John Neuhaus had bested him at a recent debate for the Economist magazine. At the Executive Board meeting last week he said it was a combination of Neuhaus' "silver-tongued oratory" and the extreme way the debate was framed -- "Religion and politics should always be kept separate."

Here's a link to what Neuhaus said about the debate.

Before Barry agrees to debate Neuhaus again, I suggest that he read Damon Linker's The Theocons: Secular America Under Seige. Linker was editor of Neuhaus' journal First Things. He exposes the "radical religious ideas" that Neuhaus and other theoconservatives have been injecting into American politics.

Anyone with comprehension of Linker's book would know that the debate was framed in a way that would put Barry at a disadvantage.

Americans United does not defend a one-sided secularist view of the Constitution. I'm one of a number of ministers and rabbis on the board of Americans United. We do not deny a voice for religion in politics -- there is room for all opinions in the public square. What we do is to separate the institutions of church and state -- that is how Americans have decided we ought to order our life together.

Rather than wage wars -- cultural or otherwise -- to determine which religion should exercise dominion over governmental policy, we make a distinction between the authority of religion and the authority of the government. We defend both the disestablishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. This protects minorities from the tyranny of the majority in matters of religion. We expect those who lead us to govern from an understanding of the common good that respects the constitutional distinction we have made between the authority of personal religious convictions and the authority of the policies that govern our common life.

Neuhaus does not respect that constitutional distinction. He strips the disestablishment clause of any meaning and interprets the first amendment entirely as a free exercise clause. Ultimately, he is defending the right of the majority to use governmental authority to impose their religious beliefs and values on all society.